The bad news for Alphabet’s subsidiaries continues to get worse. Last week, Tony Fadell, the C.E.O. of smart-home appliance company Nest, which Google bought for $3.2 billion in 2014, stepped down amid controversy. Now, another one of the tech giant’s moonshots, the GoogleX biotech division Verily Life Sciences, has come under scrutiny, too. According to health and medicine publication Stat, one of Verily’s signature products, a glucose-detecting smart contact lens for diabetics, is a long way from becoming a reality, and former employees aren’t sure it will ever see the light of day. Another futuristic product, a FitBit-style wristband designed to detect cancer, was described by one expert as “not only science fiction, but beyond that—science fantasy.”

“This kind of ‘faith-based science’ has proven to be very expensive,
and should not come from companies like Verily.”

Verily C.E.O. Andrew Conrad reportedly has a sign on his desk saying “do epic shit,” and is irrepressible when it comes to marketing his company’s vision. But sources who spoke to Stat describe Verily’s projects as more hype than reality. One former employee referred to the smart contact lens as “slideware,” meaning it looks great on paper, but doesn’t exist outside of PowerPoint presentations. The contact lens, which Google first announced in 2014, is supposed to provide a way for people with diabetes to monitor their glucose levels without having to prick their fingertips to test their blood. But chemist John Smith told Stat he’s wary of the accuracy of Verily’s tear-based method of measuring glucose levels. “[T]here is always a new adherent who thinks all the measurements that went before were wrong,” Smith says in Stat’s report. “This kind of ‘faith-based science’ has proven to be very expensive, and should not come from companies like Verily; but then, cost does not seem to be an issue there.” Healthcare company Novartis, which is working with Verily to bring the contact lens to market, told Stat that the project “continues to make steady progress and remains in the research phase.”

While no Verily executives responded to Stat’s requests for comment, Google provided a statement describing its research as “inherently difficult” and defending Verily’s capacity to “make success attainable on very challenging projects.” But other experts who spoke with Stat argued that technology companies like Google had overstepped their bounds by hoping to revolutionize biotechnology, too. One biosensor and nanotechnology expert Stat spoke with said what Verily was commandeering was “a type of Silicon Valley arrogance”—similar, perhaps, to the hubris that brought down Theranos, the $9 billion blood-testing start-up now facing a criminal investigation over accusations that it misled investors about the functionality of its technology. Theranos came under fire last year in a series of Wall Street Journal reports questioning the accuracy of its blood-testing methods, which revealed that it often had to rely on generic machines to run its tests. Verily, however, is not positioning itself as a company with a salable product like Theranos. Verily “is not a products company,” chief medical officer Jessica Megaargued Monday on Bloomberg TV. “But it’s a company really focused on trying to shift the needle when it comes to health and disease.” That’s a distinction, luckily for Google, that could make all the difference.

Andrew Mason, Groupon

Scorned as the “worst C.E.O. of 2012” by CNBC’s Herb Greenberg, Andrew Mason was at the helm of Groupon when the company went public, an I.P.O. Greenberg wrote off as the “most over-hyped . . . of recent years.” Years after going public, Groupon still has trouble turning a profit.

Photo: Photo-Illustration by Ben Park; From Bloomberg (Mason), Robert Kirk/Photodisc (Ticket), both from Getty Images.

Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes became emblematic of Silicon Valley excess when her $9 billion blood-testing start-up, Theranos, became the subject of a series of Wall Street Journal investigations that reported that the company’s technology didn’t actually work. Theranos is currently under federal criminal investigation.

Parker Conrad, Zenefits

Zenefits C.E.O. and co-founder Parker Conrad resigned in 2016 amid concerns over questions about his $4.5 billion start-up’s regulatory compliance. Further reports insinuated Zenefits’ company culture under Conrad was more frat house than hackathon, complete with allegations of sex in the stairwells and plenty of drinking.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

Hailed as the turnaround boss Yahoo so desperately needed when she was hired for the job in 2012, Marissa Mayer has come under fire as investors have lost their patience waiting for a miracle that never came. (The millions she reportedly spent on lavish parties and perks, while the ailing Internet giant circled the drain, didn’t help.) Yahoo is now up for sale.

Carly Fiorina, H.P.

When Carly Fiorina was let go from her six-year tenure as C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard, the company’s stock jumped 10 percent upon the news of her firing. While she was C.E.O., Fiorina didn’t increase the company’s profits, and she actually decreased H.P.’s shareholders’ wealth by 52 percent. A disastrous merger with Compaq, which led her to fire some 30,000 employees, haunted Fiorina throughout her failed senate and presidential campaigns, too.

Jason Goldberg, Fab

E-commerce start-up Fab was once valued at $900 million, a near unicorn in Silicon Valley terms. But after allegedly burning through $200 million of its $336 million in venture capital, C.E.O. Jason Goldberg was forced to shutter its European arm and lay off two-thirds of its staff.

Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne and Gravity4

Fired in 2014 from his ad-tech firm RadiumOne following a domestic-violence conviction, Gurbaksh Chahal founded a new company to compete with the one he was kicked out of. But Gravity4, his new firm, was sued for gender discrimination in 2015, though that case is still pending, and former employees have contemplated legal action against him.

Andrew Mason, Groupon

Scorned as the “worst C.E.O. of 2012” by CNBC’s Herb Greenberg, Andrew Mason was at the helm of Groupon when the company went public, an I.P.O. Greenberg wrote off as the “most over-hyped . . . of recent years.” Years after going public, Groupon still has trouble turning a profit.

Photo-Illustration by Ben Park; From Bloomberg (Mason), Robert Kirk/Photodisc (Ticket), both from Getty Images.

Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes became emblematic of Silicon Valley excess when her $9 billion blood-testing start-up, Theranos, became the subject of a series of Wall Street Journal investigations that reported that the company’s technology didn’t actually work. Theranos is currently under federal criminal investigation.

Parker Conrad, Zenefits

Zenefits C.E.O. and co-founder Parker Conrad resigned in 2016 amid concerns over questions about his $4.5 billion start-up’s regulatory compliance. Further reports insinuated Zenefits’ company culture under Conrad was more frat house than hackathon, complete with allegations of sex in the stairwells and plenty of drinking.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

Hailed as the turnaround boss Yahoo so desperately needed when she was hired for the job in 2012, Marissa Mayer has come under fire as investors have lost their patience waiting for a miracle that never came. (The millions she reportedly spent on lavish parties and perks, while the ailing Internet giant circled the drain, didn’t help.) Yahoo is now up for sale.

David Byttow, Secret

David Byttow, the founder of anonymous-posting app Secret, pivoted his year-old start-up to an incubator in 2015 after allegedly pocketing millions and buying a flashy Ferrari. Google Ventures investor Bill Maris later compared the start-up shutting down to a “bank heist.”

Michelle Peluso, Gilt

Gilt Groupe, the once hot flash-sales start-up, was valued at $1 billion in 2011, having raised more than $286 million in funding since its founding. Five years later, Hudson’s Bay, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, purchased it for $250 million in what CNN dubbed the “ultimate flash sale.”

Anthony Bay, Rdio

Rdio filed for bankruptcy in 2015, showing just how hard it can be to make a viable streaming service. Rdio had raised $125 million in funding at a $500 million valuation. Pandora scooped up “many employees” from the failed start-up afterward, though its C.E.O. Anthony Bay did not join them.

Dan Wagner, Powa Technologies

C.E.O. Dan Wagner said that his company’s product, a glorified Q.R. scanner called PowaTag, was going to help Powa become “the greatest technology company of all time.” In February, $2.7 billion Powa shut down after struggling with its flagship product and, according to former employees, Wagner’s own hubris.

Photo-Illustration by Ben Park; From Bloomberg/Getty Images (Wagner).

Adora Cheung, Homejoy

On-demand cleaning start-up Homejoy shut down in 2015 after failing to hold onto its customers. C.E.O. Adora Cheung reportedly didn’t work to fix its retention rates, which flopped as a result of offering $19 flat-fee introductory deals. The “deciding factors” in Homejoy closing its doors, however, were the four lawsuits it faced from workers who claimed they’d been misclassified as contractors. The lawsuits were still pending as of last summer.

Ben Kaufman, Quirky

Quirky, a start-up that sought to crowdsource inventions to the masses, filed for bankruptcy in September 2015. Quirky struggled to raise funding and C.E.O. Ben Kaufman stepped down a month before his company folded. Quirky sold Wink, its software business, to Flextronics for $15 million.

Scott Thompson, Yahoo

Scott Thompson served as C.E.O. of Yahoo before the company hired Marissa Mayer. Months after Thompson was hired to the job, vocal activist investor Dan Loeb sent Yahoo’s board a letter questioning Thompson’s credentials and wondering if perhaps Thompson had “embellished his academic credentials.” Thompson was immediately replaced with Ross Levinsohn, after the board discovered Thompson had falsely added a computer-science degree to his résumé.

Photo-Illustration by Ben Park; By Jo Foord (Kindersley), from Bloomberg (Thompson), both from Getty Images.

Carly Fiorina, H.P.

When Carly Fiorina was let go from her six-year tenure as C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard, the company’s stock jumped 10 percent upon the news of her firing. While she was C.E.O., Fiorina didn’t increase the company’s profits, and she actually decreased H.P.’s shareholders’ wealth by 52 percent. A disastrous merger with Compaq, which led her to fire some 30,000 employees, haunted Fiorina throughout her failed senate and presidential campaigns, too.

Jason Goldberg, Fab

E-commerce start-up Fab was once valued at $900 million, a near unicorn in Silicon Valley terms. But after allegedly burning through $200 million of its $336 million in venture capital, C.E.O. Jason Goldberg was forced to shutter its European arm and lay off two-thirds of its staff.

Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne and Gravity4

Fired in 2014 from his ad-tech firm RadiumOne following a domestic-violence conviction, Gurbaksh Chahal founded a new company to compete with the one he was kicked out of. But Gravity4, his new firm, was sued for gender discrimination in 2015, though that case is still pending, and former employees have contemplated legal action against him.